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vrijdag 11 januari 2013

Davina McCall will present new Channel 4 big money gameshow Five Minutes to a Fortune.

The Million Pound Drop presenter will oversee the action as teams attempt to take home a cash prize, which could total £100,000.

Based around a 15-foot hourglass built inside the studio, teams must work together to complete five challenges in just five minutes to make sure that they win the cash and the money doesn't start to drain away.

"Five Minutes to a Fortune is one of those shows that has you clenching your buttocks from start to finish - I cannot wait to get started!" said McCall.

Tom Beck, commissioning editor for Channel 4 Entertainment, said: "Five Minutes to a Fortune is a hugely exciting new format fronted by the best host in the business.

The teams on the show consist of two people, the Timekeeper and the Gameplayer. The Timekeeper decides the game categories and how long they'll play each game.

The Timekeeper will be able to pick categories that they believe will suit their teammate and will also be able to 'Freeze Time' - pause a game for 10 seconds - and 'Emergency Stop' - abort a challenge and replace it with a new one.

When the five challenges end, the roles switch and the Timekeeper must complete one final game to earn the money left in the hourglass.

McClintock, who joined the company in 1993 to help launch "Late Show With David Letterman" and directed the network's communication for the Olympic winter games in Nagano, Japan in 1998, was named senior vice president of communications in 2002.

Ender (pictured), who came aboard CBS in 1996, has been instrumental in building the company's West Coast communications operation, overseeing publicity launches for "Two and a Half Men," "Everybody Loves Raymond," "The Big Bang Theory," "NCIS," the "CSI" franchise and others. Most recently he served as senior vice president, communications, a position he'd held since 1998.

Both McClintock and Ender will continue to work with Schwartz in charting CBS Corporation's media-relations and communications strategy, with McClintock working from New York and Ender working from Los Angeles.

“Chris and Dana are two of the brightest, most forward-thinking executives in the business,” Schwartz said. “Each is an incredibly gifted strategist and manager who has grown over the years to become the best that this business -- any business, in fact -- has to offer.

"Together, working closely with the senior management of the Company across its many divisions, they have successfully helped to transform the perception of CBS from that of a simple broadcasting company into a leading content creator on the world stage," Schwartz added. "I am very proud to promote them both to these well-deserved positions, and look forward to working with them for many years to come.”

NBC entertainment chief Paul Lee says he has fast-tracked a Joss Whedon series based on "S.H.I.E.L.D," the Marvel comics peacekeeping agency featured in "The Avengers" and other films.

ABC announced in August, after the huge success of "The Avengers," that it had ordered a pilot based on the fictitious agency headed by Nick Fury (played in the movies by Samuel L. Jackson). Lee said in a Television Critics Association panel on Thursday that while ABC has not greenlit a series, it hopes to fast-track it if the pilot works out.

"We haven't yet seen the pilot," Lee said. "We fast-tracked that before the others. We're going to see it a lot earlier than the others. We're very hopeful that is going to move forward to series, we'll build our marketing campaign for it early. But we basically have the possibility of a show that can bring both men and women and kids, too."

Whedon, who wrote and directed the big-screen version of "The Avengers," is also writing the pilot, along with brother Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen ("Dollhouse").

"By the way, the script's great," Lee added. "I don't want to jinx it because that may not mean a good pilot or a good series, but we're very excited about it. Joss is wonderful to work with."

ABC entertainment president Paul Lee summd up his fall season by saying his network has "a lot to shout about, and we also have a lot to do."

Lee's network finished the fall in fourth place in the key 18-49 demographic and third place in total viewers. He lamented the fall's lack of any "big breakout hits on broadcast on any of the networks and on ABC in particular."

NBC, which passed ABC and its other rivals to become fall's top-rated network in 18-49, might dispute that: It has touted the new drama "Revolution" as a hit.

Lee assessed his network's fall at a Television Critics Association panel on Thursday. He said he was particularly disappointed not to see better numbers for reality standby "Dancing With the Stars," which adapted an "all-star" format in the fall and brought back former contestants. He said that for its spring cycle, the show would go back to recruiting fresh talent, in hopes of drawing a younger audience.

Looking for a positive spin on the disappointing ratings for the show -- which still averages 16 million total viewers per episode -- he said the dancing this fall may have been too good.

"It turns out people like to have bad dancing as much as they do good dancing," he said.

A new Russian crime series seems to have taken ahem, inspiration from the BBC Sherlock's opening credits...

Good-naturedly retweeted today by Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss with the words "Ha! The sincerest form of flattery" were the opening credits to new Russian crime series, the title of which translates as Freud's Method.

And to think, Sherlock producer Sue Vertue was worried about CBS' Elementary infringing on the BBC show's rights...

Freud's Method tells the story of a special consultant to the police who solves "complex cases using outstanding insight and brilliant logic". Here are what appear to be the synopsis and first trailer for the show, courtesy of production company StarMediaFilm:

"Special consultant Roman Freydin is introduced to the crime detection department under the Prosecutor’s Office. A psychologist and professional poker player in his younger days, Freydin traveled extensivelythroughout Russia and Europe dealing with many people from different professions - from qualified psychoanalysts to magicians and fortune-tellers, from celebrated scientists to illegal gamblers.

When investigating a crime, Freydin uses scientific methods but is ultimately guided by his intuition. He pieces together events from the crime scene creating psychological and physical profiles of the perpetrators so that he is able to preempt their next move leading to their capture. While the foundation of Roman’s approach is psychological science, his method – Freud’s method – is about directly provoking his suspects in order to catch them out. Unfortunately, he also employs this method in dealing with his new colleagues, which is met with a variety of negative responses.

Nevertheless, his fellow officers acknowledge Freudakov as a brilliant expert and perhaps because of his odd and eccentric methods, Freud is able to solve some of the most complex cases using his outstanding insight and brilliant logic."

Thanks to the $500 million sale of his liberal news station Current TV to Al Jazeera this month, Gore now has a personal fortune of $300 million, Forbes magazine estimates. That puts him ahead of Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, whose estimated $230 million left him vulnerable to charges that he was out of touch with the common man.

The financial publication ascribes Gore's wealth to a series of savvy investments that substantially multiplied the $2 million he listed as assets when he ran and lost the presidential race to George W. Bush in 2000.

From his reported 20 percent share of Current, Gore will receive a $100 million pre-tax payday. But that's not the only evidence of his golden touch. Forbes notes that Gore holds more than $35 million in stock and options through his work as a board member of Apple and could have received a hefty compensation package from his stint as a senior adviser on environmental issues to Google, which started before the search giant went public.

Also filling Gore's coffers was his work in financial services companies like Metropolitan West Financial and his position in Generation Investment Management, which he co-founded with former Goldman Sachs executive David Blood. That company handles some $7 billion in assets, Forbes reports.

Not everyone is happy about Gore's newfound mega-wealth. On CNN's site, media watchdog Howard Kurtz questioned the former vice president's decision to sell his company to a news organization like Al Jazeera that has financial ties to the government of Qatar.

"The marketplace will decide its fate," Kurtz opined. "But there is something unsettling about Gore making off with such a big payday from a government-subsidized channel after making such bad television. Nice work if you can get it."

FX president John Landgraf says he expects at least one more season of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," and possibly two.

Landgraf talked about plans for the hit comedy during a panel at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. He also said FX has not "yet" ordered the drama "The Bridge," which would star Diane Kruger and Demian Bichir as cops from both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border.

Asked about AMC's history of problems with showrunners -- "Walking Dead" head Glen Mazzarra recently parted ways with the hit show -- he also said FX was "batting .1000" in holding onto showrunners.

Only the showrunner of FX's "Wilfred" had left the position, he said -- and he remained an executive producer of the comedy.

Landgraf also talked about the creative freedom he is known for allowing his showrunners. He joked that his oversight of "American Horror Story" consists of listening to co-creator Ryan Murphy's ideas and saying "great."

Landgraf said "Sunny" was one of the key shows he credits for FX's success. He brought the show to the network in a deal that gave its producers little pay up front. But they were allowed vast creative freedom, and have become very rich as the show persevered.

The trio behind "Sunny" -- Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton -- split just $1 million to act, write, produce and star in its seven-episode first season in 2005. McElhenney, the show's creator, kept his job as a waiter.

But under their current deal, they'll divide $40 million total for the show's eighth, ninth and tenth seasons.

"Baby" singer Justin Bieber will do double duty on "Saturday Night Live" for its Feb. 9 episode, serving as both host and musical guest, NBC said Wednesday.

Bieber, who's currently thrilling tweeners everywhere on his Believe World Tour, has appeared on the late-night show in the past, serving as musical guest in April 2010 and appearing in a skit opposite "SNL" alum Dana Carvey's Church Lady character in a February 2011 episode.

"SNL" returns from hiatus on Jan. 19, with "The Hunger Games" star Jennifer Lawrence hosting and the Lumineers serving as musical guest.